Wabara as a Metaphor

By Ikechukwu Amaechi Let me state from the onset that I have nothing against Senator Adolphus Wabara as a person. If anything, I should be happy that a man of his pedigree is occupying the country’s third most important position. He has a verifiable Masters degree obtained from Kiev State University, Ukraine. He is neither like his colleague from Imo State, Senator Ifeanyi Arararume whose only claim to university degree is a clearance given him by the police in 2001 nor Governor Bola Ahmed Tinubu of Lagos state, whose educational qualifications remain a subject of conjecture. Senator Wabara is unlike Honourable Maurice Ibekwe, the alleged fraudster who is currently cooling his heels in Kirikiri prison while his colleagues are in Abuja making laws for the good governance of the country. As a businessman, he excelled. As a grassroots politician, he has equally proved his mettle, serving as a two-time local government chairman. In fact, in 1997, he bagged the best local government chairman award and was subsequently elected into the short-lived Federal House of Representatives between 1992 and 1993. Wabara also has a very reputable family name to flaunt if he so wishes and this is important. He has all it takes to raise his head high in the Nigerian society. Having also served in the immediate past Senate, the man who represented Abia South Senatorial District in the last four years has all it takes to be Senate President. He wouldn’t carry the liability of an Evan (Evans) Enwerem nor an Arthur (ABN) Nzeribe. Though he is not known to be very rich, at least, not in the class of his governor, Chief Orji Uzor Kalu, or even his brother, Marc Wabara, chairman of Hallmark Bank, who was the pointsman of the team called Corporate Nigeria, that raised N2 billion for Mr. President in less than one month thereby creating a slush fund with which President Olusegun Obasanjo secured a second term in office, the senator is comfortable materially. So, Chief Adolphus Wabara could have made an excellent Senate President and the Igbo who have become the butt of all silly jokes in the last four years because of banana peels dropped by the side of the Senate President seat ostensibly by the presidency perhaps for once, would have had cause to raise their heads high. Unfortunately, this cannot be. Senator Wabara unwittingly has become a metaphor for fraud, and this is sad. But I see God’s hand in what is happening in the Senate now. When ordinary mortals begin to act with impunity, when people begin to act God, the Almighty has a way of ridiculing and exposing them for what they are. And that is exactly what has happened with the case of the Senate Presidency. It has nothing to do with Wabara as a person, but a scapegoat must always be found in any betrayal endeavour, but woe betides you if you are the ‘Judas Iscariot’. The truth is that Nigerians who have absolute faith in democracy and fought for it have been betrayed by their leaders and God has used Wabara and the manner of his election as the Senate President to expose the parody and absurdity that is currently going on in Nigeria, all in the name of democracy. The issue here is the subversion of due process which makes Nigeria a laughing stock in the comity of nations. Sadly, those who ought to know better are either keeping quiet because Obasanjo, a Yoruba man, is the president or they have been ’settled’. Hypocritically, many are admonishing the new National Assembly to be subservient to Mr. President, a man whose inclination to dictatorship is rather too obvious. They want a pliant National Assembly that will kowtow to the whims and caprices of the President and even if the system is pulled down if only to strengthen the hands of only one man, so be it. How unfair can some people be to fellow human beings all in an attempt to maximize power? Nigerians have been reduced to mere spectators in a game they ought to be the major players. Democracy is a game governed by the sacrosanct rule of the majority. It is a game where the people must generally have a say but the majority must have their way. But like everything Nigerian, the process has been so subverted that whatever Obasanjo and the conceited, boastful and self-important few that constitute his kitchen cabinet decide becomes law and is rammed down the throat of hapless Nigerians. For how long will this continue and for how long will ordinarily discerning Nigerians play the ostrich on the altar of tribalism? The fact is that the powers that be are gradually but inexorably destroying the system. They started with the electoral process which they have thoroughly discredited. The average Nigerian has lost faith in the power of the ballot, and apathy is creeping in. If the local government election eventually holds, many Nigerians will begin to appreciate how bad the situation is. It will not be surprising if only PDP candidates contest the elections in all the 774 local government councils in the federation because no sane Nigerian would ever waste his time and resources again to contest in an election in which the results had already been written even before the first ballot is cast. That is the sad reality of Nigeria’s democracy. It has been nudged to the precipice. Now, those same forces have launched a two-pronged attack on both the legislature and the judiciary. The legislature, particularly, at the federal level has over the last four years been systematically vilified. The on-going drama will drive the last nail into the coffin of that august body. The same forces are now beaming their searchlight on the judiciary. With the likes of Justice Wilson Egbo-Egbo on the bench, sooner than later, the judiciary, which is touted as the last hope of the common man, will be thoroughly discredited and smeared. The game-plan is to ensure that at the end of the day, only one man is left standing when every other person has been brought down. Then, a Saint Olusegun Obasanjo, the expected messiah will emerge without who Nigeria cannot be. The press, unfortunately, is sucked into this odious scheme. But that is by way of digression. The issue here as stated earlier is that of due process. Is Adolphus Wabara qualified and has he what it takes to be the President of the Senate of the Federal Republic of Nigeria? My answer is yes. Was he qualified to be Senate President as at the time he was elected? The answer is no. Why? Because, his so-called election didn’t follow due process. In the course of his election, rule of law was dealt a mortal blow. No matter how you look at it, Wabara’s emergence as Senate President has exposed every Nigerian to ridicule. Wabara’s supporters insist that the man could have emerged as the senator-elect if not for the machinations of his state governor, Kalu, who swore never to allow his (Wabara) Senate Presidency ambition to blossom. Unfortunately for Orji, President Obasanjo who has the ultimate power in Nigeria wanted Wabara to be the Senate President and automatically the man who Kalu ensured that he failed the senatorial election dramatically became Senate President, the fact that he did not cross the first hurdle – election into the Senate – notwithstanding. Even if it meant securing a midnight judgement from a court that has no jurisdiction over electoral matters in order to facilitate Wabara’s election, the powers that be were prepared to circumvent the law. Now, the question that is agitating the minds of well-meaning and concerned Nigerians is this: Where does the electorate who trooped out in their millions, defying the elements to make their democratic choices come in in the Wabara saga? The answer is nowhere. Their votes are worthless as far as the power game in Nigeria is concerned. I see the handiwork of God in all these. He wants to expose the system for what it is – a big fraud, using Adolphus Wabara’s election as a veritable metaphor. The fact remains that those who think they have conquered Nigeria have stolen so much for the owner of the house (Nigerians) not to notice. (Apologies to Chinua Achebe). Those who have hurled all manner of abuses at the opposition particularly as represented by Buhari, Okadigbo and Ojukwu for insisting that what took place in the country generally and the South-east and South-south in particular cannot by any standard be described, as election should now know better. That is, assuming they never knew the truth all along. The government magic (as the late inimitable Afrobeat maestro, Fela Anikulapo-Kuti would describe it), which ensured the election of a non-senator as the Senate President, has become an eye opener. How long will this charade go on? Why this seeming conspiracy of silence in the face of the wanton, immoral, malicious and unrestrained rape of our young democracy? Amaechi is Editor-in-Chief of People and Politics newspaper, Lagos

I Never Believed I Would Live Again – Patricia

Only few people would go through her experience and still come out alive to tell their story. But that is what Patricia ….., a 22-year-old Polytechnic student from Abia State did. Perhaps more than any other person in Borno State, Patricia, an ND 2 Accountancy student at Ramat Polytechnic saw firsthand the indescribable atrocities the Mohammed Yusuf-led Boko Haram religious sect wrought on the city of Maiduguri last month. She witnessed the brutal murder of three of her Christian brothers including her Pastor and was abducted to become a prisoner in the camp of the sect for three days. Ironically, it was through her heroic efforts that the death toll was minimized when soldiers invaded the camp of the religious sect. She told Ikechukwu Amaechi her riveting story.  

Can you remember exactly what you were doing on the day of the crisis?

That day was a Sunday and our service in the Church didn’t close until about 4.30pm.  So, the leader of Men’s Association asked me to stay back.  He said I was going to help in serving them during their meeting by 6 pm.  I promised to do that but I went somewhere and came back late around 7.30 pm.

When I came I served them the Malt drinks and meat pie I had already arranged.  When I finished, it was about 8.30 pm and it was late for me to go home, so I decided to stay back. 

So, where were you when the Boko Haram people came and what time did they come?

I was sleeping when our Assistant Pastor woke me up at about 11.30 pm asking if I was not hearing all the gunshots.  I was sleeping in the sitting room in the Pastor’s House.

So, he told me not to sleep again, that the gunshots were getting worse.  He said he thought there were two different sounds and he suspects one must be from members of the ‘Operation Flush’ while the other one was from the extremists.

So, I couldn’t sleep again and we were restless, pacing up and down, waiting for when the shooting would stop.  We were all afraid.  At a time the gunshots stopped but later, we started hearing noise.  My Pastor said it seemed the people were still around and were trying to come into our compound.

I told him that we should try and escape but he said that it would be too dangerous to do that in the night.  He said the Operation Flush people might still be around and could mistake us for members of Boko Haram and shoot.  So we stayed back. 

Then, there was a bomb blast and there was fire everywhere, we all ran out of the Pastor’s House, into the church.  We saw our security man at the door and we asked him if he  had seen what was happening.  He said yes, that he was alert and we asked him why he didn’t come earlier to call us so that we would know what to do.

He said he didn’t want to go out too so that they will not kill him.  And all of us went inside the church and locked all the doors and windows, so that they won’t enter.

We were there praying and asking God to come and help us.  We were still praying when they started breaking the windows and we didn’t know what to do again.  We were tiptoeing towards one of the doors leading into the compound while the gateman was at the other door.  It was while we were doing that that they saw us and started shooting.  One of us was wearing white cloth.

I couldn’t understand what they were saying which meant it was not Hausa language because I understand Hausa.  It could be either Kanuri or Arabic.  It was then that they broke the door and came in.  When they came in they spoke in their language.  I was standing near one of the doors with the security man and they asked him something in Kanuri because the man understood the language.  And they were asking where is the gun, where is the gun.  And the man told them that he didn’t have a gun and they said he was lying to them.  And they gave him a sliding tackle and the man fell down, and they started matcheting him.

They butchered him.  Even when the man had died, one of them said they should behead him to be sure that he was dead.

So, they severed his head but they did not remove it.  It was just by his side.  And they now pounced on our Assistant Pastor’s brother who was standing close to the altar.  They also matched him and he died.

Before then, we were at the altar (myself and the other sister, Chidinma.  We were two girls and three men in the Church) and the Pastor was holding on to Chidinma but they came, after slaughtering his brother, they came and gave him a very big cut on the head and on the shoulder and one of them stabbed him on the neck with a long dagger.  It was then that he left Chidinma and ran out of the Church and some of them pursued him.

But some stayed behind and held unto us.  They said we should go and show them where we kept our guns.  We told them that the place was not our home, that we just came to pray.  We begged them not to kill us but they said we should shut up, that the only thing that would save us is if we showed them where we kept our guns.

Because we were afraid they were going to kill us, we told them to follow us and search the house that if we see any gun, we would give to them.

They were pushing, kicking and slapping us as we went to the Pastor’s House.  They turned the whole place upside down.  After ransacking the whole building, there was no weapons.  They said we should come out and they placed something which I later knew to be bombs in three places and I don’t know how they activated it and the whole place was blown up.  There was smoke and fire everywhere.

After that, they took us out.  It was raining heavily outside.  They said we shouldn’t make any noise because we would be endangering our lives if we did.

They said that from then onwards, our fate was tied to their lives.  That if they lived, we would live but if they died, we would also die.

They said they were ready for war and that they would take us to all the places they were going and because we were afraid to die, we couldn’t resist.

Didn’t the people they killed beg them for mercy?

They did.  They were begging, on their knees but they said there was no mercy for men, that they were killing the men and that they would marry the women.  That they would take us to Arab country and marry us.

So they took you to all the churches that they burnt?

Yes, we were barefooted and we were trekking.

How many were they?

I couldn’t count them.  I was so afraid and so disoriented that I couldn’t have done that.  But they were many.  What I found out, though, was that they were in groups.  If you get to one junction, you will see another group coming from the other direction but the people that attacked us were many.

How many churches did they burn while they were with you?

The group that abducted us burnt all the churches at Wulari.  When we got to one junction, another group joined them and reported  that they had finished their own work but I didn’t know what they did there.

While you were being taken from one place to the other, did you meet any soldier or policemen on the road?

None.

What was going on in your mind while all these were happening?

Because of the way they slaughtered my Pastor and the two other people, I thought I was not going to survive.  I was  just telling God that whatever sin I had committed, he should pardon me and have pity on my soul.

 

What did the Pastor say before  they attacked him or was he just standing there too afraid to talk?

When they inflicted the deep cut on his head, Pastor said: Lord I know I am coming to you but what about these children …?  He was still talking when they cut him again and he ran away.

Did you notice them kill in any other church?

No.  It seems our church was the second they attacked after the EYN.  So by the time we got to other places, the people had run away, so it was only the building and cars that they burnt.

So, what happened after?

At about 5 am, when they finished their operation, we begged them to allow us to go but they said they would not set us free because we now belonged to them or when Mohammed Yusuf asked them to release us.  They said they would take us to their camp to see Mohammed Yusuf.

When we got to their camp, one of them said they should pour petrol on us and burn us but another one intervened and said they should not do that yet.  That they should ask us questions first.

When we got inside they asked us why we were abusing Islam.  We told them that we never abused Islam.  They asked us why we are Christians.  And we told them that we are Christians because we were born into Christian families.  They asked us if we were prepared to be Moslems and we told them that we didn’t know how to do that.

They told us that the only thing that can save us is if we got converted to Islam, otherwise they would  kill us.  We told them that if they could teach us, then we would become Moslems.

They said we should speak after them and they were saying certain things which I supposed was their prayer and we were repeating after them.  After that, they said that we now belonged to them.  That they would no longer kill us if we cooperate with them.

They said they would teach us what life is all about, that our parents didn’t teach us anything.  At the end of the day, they took us into one room and locked us up (myself and Chidinma).  We were only two.

Were there other people at the camp when you got there?

We were the first people on that Monday morning to be brought there.  It was later in the evening that they brought two other women and we were four.

It was on Tuesday that they started bringing people.  One of the women said her husband and son were killed and they poured petrol on her to set her ablaze but the lighter was faulty.  That was when one of them said they shouldn’t kill her.  They should rather take her to their camp.

He said that they should not kill women because women belong to them.

But early Tuesday morning, they brought four of us outside and they said if we didn’t want to die, we should start washing with the detergent (Omo) that was there.  Some of their men had been shot and killed by this time.  When we got to the camp, we saw about 20 corpses of their members.  They now removed their white clothes and asked us to wash them until it was whiter than snow or they would kill us.

It was then that one of their Ogas came out to give orders that they should go into town and snatch taxis and motorcycles and that anybody they see escaping the crisis, they should bring the person to the camp.  He told them that what they should do is to shout  Barracks!, Barracks!! And if they person enters, they should bring him to the camp.

He said the Igbos have a lot of sense and that if they don’t behave that way, they would be escaping.  That they should bring as many as they can.  They went into town and about two hours later they started bringing in many men and women.  All of them were crying and the buses, taxis and Okadas were coming in regularly.  Some of the women said the Okada people told them that they would help when they were running away but they didn’t know they were Boko Haram members and they brought them straight to the camp.

Around 10 pm they gathered all of us and said that the only thing that would save us was if we agreed to be Muslims.

They said those who were prepared to be Moslems should go to the right side while those who don’t want should go to the left side.  They said even if they don’t kill anybody who refuses to be a Moslem, such a person will be their slave for life.  And they said such a person will not even be a slave in Nigeria but in an Arab country.

I asked them if they would allow us to live our normal lives by going back to school if we agreed to be Moslems?  They said no. They were querying why we go to school.  They said that a woman going to school is only suffering herself.  They said women are created to enjoy their lives and to be enjoyed; that women are supposed to be in the house to be given food every morning so that they can serve men.

They said for the grown up women, they will marry us, accommodate us and give us what we want that we don’t have any problem – no school, no work.

They said that God created every human being to be a Moslem and that they want to enforce it so that Nigeria will be better.  They said women wear trousers and go about naked and asked us if that was good.  They said as for the men, they had agreed to be Moslems and they will turn them to fighters for the cause of Islam. We asked them why they were doing what they were doing.  I told them that being a Moslem or Christian should be by choice and not force as it is in the Eastern part of Nigeria where I come from, but they said no.

Almost everybody said they wanted to be Moslems.  They now went inside and brought some white clothes which they had already sown and gave to us to wear.

Was there any initiation rites?

Yes, they said we should say their prayers and after that, they will take you to one part of the camp where a woman will bath you and give you a new name.

Was there anybody that refused to be converted?

Yes, there was one woman that said no.

What happened to her?

They said she should stay at one corner but because people were many, by the time they finished it started raining and they took everybody inside.

Did you see anybody being killed in the camp?

I didn’t see anybody being killed but I noticed that if there was a disagreement, some people were asked to go inside.

Did you see those people again?

No.

So, how did you come out of the place?

By Tuesday, we pretended to be friends with them.  We told them that we had accepted to be Moslems, to be their wives but that they should let us go.

They said if we agree to be their wives, that they would take us to Arab countries.  On Wednesday, their leader came to say that now we had agreed to be Moslems, that they wanted to show us how they would take care of us.  Some people were coming back with bags of rice, loaves of bread etc., and they parked them in one room.  And they told us that if we agree to follow them that  we would never lack that they would take care of us.  They said they would be feeding and clothing us well.

They said to show us how well they would treat us, that they would give us back our handsets that they seized.  Unfortunately, none of them was working when they returned them.  I guess they might have put it inside water.

But there was one woman who hid her phone and they did not seize it.  When they released ours, she now brought it out.  I told the woman that we had to find a way of telling people outside that we were alive and I used her phone to call one of our Christian brothers and I told him it was Patricia and that he should call me back.  He shouted because they had already concluded that we were dead.

Everybody started calling.  My Pastor called and I told him we were alive.  He asked where we were and I told him.  He said they would make every effort to ensure we came out alive.  He asked whether we would be released if they came themselves and I said no, because according to them, they said they could only release a woman if her husband came.

But even at that some men that came for their wives were captured.   They were not released.  I now told my Pastor that they should not come, that we were praying for the will of God to be done.  They said they would contact security agents and inform them that there were captives at the camp.  There were many men and women.

So, my pastor told me that they would tell the security operatives to talk to me so that they would get a clear picture of where we were so that they won’t harm us when they invade the place.

Later, a man who identified him as an “Operation Flush” operative called and asked if I was Patricia and I said y

es.  He said they were coming to rescue us and asked where we were.  I said we were at their camp.  He said they were coming to bomb the place and that we should pray because it was going to be a battle so that we would not be caught in a crossfire.  He said if we come out alive, we should thank God but that they would do everything possible to reduce casualty of innocent people.

He said as they were coming, they would be communicating with me to know where exactly we were.

 Where were you.  Didn’t they see you making the calls?

No, we were locked right inside.  So, I was talking to them and until they got to the camp and they told me they were there and we stopped communicating.

What happened next?

The soldiers started shooting.  It was war.  The gunshots and bombardment were deafening.  The women were shouting and when we wanted to come out, all of them will say go inside.  Bullets were entering the place we were, that was when we forced ourselves out.  When we came out, we saw that many of them had been killed some had run away.  There were corpses everywhere.

Many were also wounded.  There was blood everywhere.  The wounded held their hands, legs, heads, etc, and they told us to run for our lives.

But their fence was so high that we couldn’t climb but some of their men were scaling the fence.  Then some of them now broke a part of the fence and everybody was escaping through there.

When we were running, they asked us to follow.  And we couldn’t say No, because they were armed.  So, we said yes to everything they said but I told my sister that we will follow them with style.  While pretending to be running with them, we were diverting.  Some women and men were following them but we were diverting until they lost sight of us and we escaped to the barracks.

How has this experience changed your life?

Fundamentally! I thought I was dead.  That I will never live again.  It is true that I have given my life to Christ but for me, being alive today is like a rebirth.  I went to the land of the dead and came back.  I challenged God.  I told Him that I learnt He saved Daniel in the Lion’s Den in the olden days and that if He can save me in my own time, I will serve Him for life with body, spirit and soul.  Since I came out, I have been trying to keep that promise.

How does this make you feel about your country?

Nigeria is in trouble because after this incident I heard the man was killed and some people are angry that he was killed.

When I heard it, I said where are we headed in this country?  Nobody is safe.

Somebody that caused the death of more than 2000 people?  He deserved death.

Are your parents alive?

My father is dead but my mother is live.  She is in my village in Abia.

Haven’t they asked you to come back home?

She has asked me to come back.  I am finishing this year.  If not for the strike, I would have finished.  I don’t intend to stay here but if I leave now, I will start all over again, going to look for admission, I will be rounding up by December.  That is why I am still here.  I will wait but they are calling me to come back.

Did you see anybody killed?

No.  I didn’t.  But some people will be taking inside and at times, you will hear gunshots.  One woman used to say that they were executing somebody.  Also, when we are pressed  and they bring us outside to ease ourselves, you will see corpses everywhere.

How many people were in the room?

We were about 60.

You had space to sit down?

There was none

Were you fed?

The first day, we did not eat.  We said if we were to die, we should better die hungry   On the second day they even brought one fruit for us but people were afraid that they were going to poison us.  Later, we noticed that they were bringing in television, fridges, etc.  Then there were two cars that came with bread.  It was from a bakery we know and they offloaded the bread in our presence. So, it was the bread and water that we ate.

Do you wake up now thinking that your experience cannot possibly be true?

Yes.  Even now, I pinch myself to know if I am the person because I never believed I would live again.

After your escape, how did you return to the Church?

We trekked to the Barracks.  We were tired and the people there gave us water.  They asked us what happened and we explained to them.  They said we were now safe and we saw many Igbos.  We saw one of our elders in the Church, Elder Friday Ogueke, passing by and we held him.  He gave us food, water and mat to lie down.  The next day when the crisis was easing off, he now took us to our house and we took our bath.

Boko Haram Leader Deserved Death – PFN Boss

Rev. Dr. Daniel Egboka, Assistant General Superintendent of the National Evangelical Mission and Chairman Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria (Borno State Chapter) is the Pastor of the National Evangelical Mission Wukari Headquarters, Maiduguri. His church suffered most in the hands of the extremist sect. Not only was the entire church burnt down, his assistant Pastor, his brother and the security man were all murdered in cold blood while taking refuge inside the church. In this interview with IKECHUKWU AMAECHI in Maiduguri, he says those querying the death of Yusuf are being hypocritical.

When did you become the pastor of this church?

I came back here the second time in 1994. I established this church in 1975 and was posted out in 1976. I came back in 1980 and posted out again in 1985 but came back in 1994 and since then I have been the pastor here.

What happened on that fateful day?

Eyewitnesses, because I wasn’t here then, said some people, numbering about 50 jumped over the fence, shooting guns and broke the windows. When my Assistant Pastor that was living here, Sylvester Nseobong, heard the shootings, they were five in the house and they all went inside the church with the hope the people will not enter the church. But these people broke into the church and captured all of them, killed our security man, Elijah Gambo, killed the Pastor’s brother that visited from Akwa Ibom, Patrick James, and then broke the Pastor’s head and stabbed him on the neck. He managed to run away but fell down at the back of the building where he was picked up in the morning.

He was rushed to the hospital and when I rushed to the hospital, I could only spend 30 minutes with him.

When I came back at about 8 a.m., I saw the total destruction. I lost everything I have been working for since 1975 – the pastor’s house, the office, the equipment, everything in the church was burnt. Eyewitnesses said that they threw two grenades into the church and two into the pastor’s house before the buildings were raised down.

When you met your Assistant Pastor, was he still conscious. Did he tell you anything?

No. he was just screaming when the doctors were working on him.

How do you feel?

I feel sad. It is traumatic. My concern is about the Pastor and two others who were burnt beyond recognition. One of them, the security man was buried on Monday, but the Pastor’s brother was taken home to Ikot Ekpene. My Pastor was also taken to Ikot Ekpene and his corpse is still in the mortuary. It is very traumatic.

I’m just from a PFN meeting and everybody was sharing their experience. You will hear from the two girls who were captured and taken to their camp. Both of them were told to renounce their Christianity which they did to save their lives because they watched many who refuse renounce their faith killed. About 60 of them were there in the camp. Only God’s intervention saved them because it was only on Tuesday morning that the girls established contact with us through phone and we started calling security men.

We were able to get a soldier who helped us when they were going to bomb the place to contact the girls on phone, told them what to do when they would be bombing that place, and that was what saved them.

Will this experience force you to leave Maiduguri?

As a human being, I am feeling terribly bad because on February 18, 2006, the same thing would have happened. We lost about 53 churches in this town, 23 of them Pentecostal churches. A lot of people were killed. I remember the incident. I was standing before eight corpses that were about to be carried to the South, praying for the repose of their soul.

I still remember vividly, the tears that were coming out of everybody’s eyes. That was only in 2006, three years ago. Now, this one has happened again. As a human being, it is a tree that you will threaten to kill and it will still stand there. I have great fear that anything can happen.

I believe that I am a target and also the chairman of CAN here. He is the pastor of EYN and his church was also burnt down. It is the two churches that were attacked, bombed before other churches and I feel strongly that I am a target. So I have a fear.

Who do you blame for all these?

I cannot quickly blame anybody but I think the government did not do their duty because they knew those things before they happened. We had a meeting on July 20 and we sent delegates to meet the Commissioner of Police. When they met the Commissioner and told him about all the news filtering in that the Boko Haram people were planning an attack, he told us that the sect was against the government and not the church.

And on Friday, there was news that these people could attack, and government did not do anything about it. They would have prevented the mayhem if they had been proactive.

They have all the machinery to prevent it. They have all the security – the army, the police, the SSS, etc. They could have stopped them. But, now it was after the damage had been done that they stepped in and this was the same thing that happened in 2006.

I insist that the government did not do its work as it ought to, constitutionally. They are to protect the lives and property of the citizens of this nation. Our lives are in danger, lives are not protected. There is fear everywhere.

What did you hear before those attacks?

We heard that members of the sect were preparing to attack the church. In the meeting we held, we sent delegates to the Commissioner of Police. We would have put it in writing but because we had no concrete evidence, we went to tell him verbally what we were hearing.

But he told us that he had heard the same report but that they were not against the church that they were against the government. But the whole thing is against the church. As I speak, about 20 churches were destroyed in this city, three pastors were killed and many brethren lost their lives, most of them because they did not renounce their faith.

There is angst in the international and human rights communities over the killing of Mohammed Yusuf after his arrest without charging him to court. They contend it amounts to extra-judicial killing. What do you say?

Well, that is what people will say. But what about the people he killed? How many people did he kill? Is the international community or those frowning at his death also not concerned about the people he killed? How many people did he kill? How many followers of his were even killed, all because of him? Why should they be blaming the police for killing him? What would the police have done?

I was not there, but I leant that when the man was captured, he said he would not say anything until he reached Abuja and he felt that if he got to Abuja, he may be set free because according to information, he had been arrested and taken to Abuja several times and released.

So, I don’t blame the police for killing him. How many police officers lost their lives? How many soldiers were killed?

Those human rights activists, are they not concerned about the policemen that were killed? Are they not people’s children? What of the soldiers that were killed? Are they not human beings? Why should they be concerned about only one death out of several? Did Yusuf try those he killed in law court? So, I don’t blame the police at all. He deserved death.

What do you demand from the government?

I started this work that has been completely destroyed in 1974. This is where I have put all my life. This is what I have been doing since I became a pastor and it was destroyed just like that. I demand that the government should pay us compensation.

They can’t compensate for the three lives that were lost here. They cannot even compensate fully for what I lost here. What about the building, my equipment. My sound system, I bought one of them $3,000 in 2007. I bought my drum N250,000. The equipment we were using were the best sound system in the whole of Maiduguri. What about my office? How many computers were burnt? All the work I have in the system, all my writings. I have three books I am yet to publish. They are all on the laptop. All were destroyed. No amount of money can compensate for the loss but they must do something. Let it not be like February 18, 2006, which was swept under the carpet.

Do you have an exact idea of the number of people that were killed?

I can only give estimate according to CAN record.  Eighteen Christians lost their lives and 20 churches were totally destroyed and many brethrens’ homes were burnt.

How does this make you feel about Nigeria?

My brother, I will tell you Nigeria is not a safe place to live.  I have traveled round the world.  I have even been to Haiti, the poorest country in the Northern Hemisphere.  They value human life.  We have no value for human life here.

Here, unless you are a rich man, the safety of your life and property is not guaranteed.  We have thousands of policemen, thousands of soldiers, all of them being paid, yet nobody is assured of his safety.

Do you agree that these crises are consequences of poverty?

I disagree.  It is a consequence of hatred.  This is the consequence of spirit of Anti-Christ.  Poverty will not make you to kill your fellow human being.  Poverty will only make you to struggle to get something to eat.  Now that they have killed and maimed, will they become rich, will that solve their poverty problem?

This is not poverty.  It is unbridled hatred against Christianity.  Anything that happens in this town will affect Christians.  Can you call this poverty? No!

Don’t people who are poor go out to struggle for food?  But here, you see them roaming the streets.  Who made them to be poor?  They idle away, not working.  If you don’t work, you are bound to be poor.

How long can this be endured?

Until God intervenes.  Nigeria is in trouble.  Our politicians do not value life. Do you know that at times politicians use these boys to get what they need and later abandon them?  It is only God that can save us. When God intervenes, there will be a remedy.

How does your wife feel?  It will be a surprise if she has not told you it is time to go.

She is already in the East.  She cannot bear this.  She called me on phone this morning to bring the children home.  I will go and buy the ticket for three of them to go home.  I am a target.  As chairman of PFN who appears on television to say the things I say, I am a target.  As a typical Igbo man, I have to sit down and think, and know what next to do.

But for the fact that my church is burnt, all my documents, even the ones to take to the bank are all burnt, I would have sent all of them home.  Let me watch what is happening and seek God’ directives.

Boko Haram Worse Than Maitasine – Gov Sheriff

 Perhaps, when the Islamic  religious sect, Boko Haram, led by late Mohammed Yusuf, driven by their misguided zealotry set Borno State ablaze, literally speaking, Governor Ali Modu Sheriff had no idea how easily a villain could become a hero in death.

But today, he is facing the most difficult time of his rather illustrious political career that has seen him elected thrice as a Senator and twice as Governor because of the controversial circumstances of the sect leader’s death. He has been accused of not only sponsoring the group but ordering the killing of Yusuf.

But in this interview with Ikechukwu Amaechi, the Governor presents his own side of the story. Excerps

 Borno State went through a very traumatic experience penultimate week. How is Maiduguri now?

Maiduguri is peaceful. For now, normalcy has returned and from the feedback we are getting, people have started their normal lives having gone through the trauma that lasted for almost five days. If you had come to the streets of Maiduguri then, you would think you were in a ghost town. You couldn’t find anybody because of fear and because of what they had seen especially in the capital city. But, everything has normalized now.

As the Governor, what was actually going through your mind during those five days of madness, how did you feel?

I felt bad because innocent souls were being killed, people were being separated from their families and people were going through hell because bandits were operating right inside the Maiduguri town and they were openly going around with their guns terrorizing everybody.

Did you see the crisis coming?

Yes, I saw it coming at a stage particularly when I saw the tape of Yusuf’s sermon where he dared me and the Nigerian state, as well as the Commander-in-Chief of this country. He was daring every leader. What made me feel bad was that he was boasting that he had been arrested before and released and that even if he was arrested again, nothing would happen. At that stage, I got really worried. He threatened that they knew where we slept, our route to the offices and therefore they would deal with us. He specifically mentioned my name and said I was the biggest Kafir, unbeliever who must be dealt with.

I got really worried and that was the time that we asked the security operatives, ‘Operation Flush,’ to stop even motorcycles after 7pm because there was a law to that effect. What they do in the name of preaching is that in the night, they go enmass after 7pm preaching and that is prohibited in the state as it were.

When did you get this tape you are talking of?

I got the tape less than one month ago and that was the time that I really got worried. There are lots of security meetings on this man to bring an end to the situation we found on ground today.

Apart from the law you made banning okada, what other security steps did you take so that the situation will not get out of hand?

The commander of the Operation Flush which is in charge of keeping peace visited the state and said that whatever they can do to enforce the law that does not allow followership to go around in the town will surely be done. It was as a result of the security alert that we put in place; they are watching them and their movement, to see what they are doing, they were arrested just one week to this crisis or four days to the crisis, we started knowing the extent of what they were doing because we were having them on tape. But before then, they had an encounter with soldiers before the incident happened, they tried to disarm soldiers on patrol and the soldiers had no other choice at that point than to open fire on them. So he said since soldiers have opened fire on them, now he was ready for attack. But I think he was basically looking for ways of doing what we are privy to.

Could it be that you treated these people with kid gloves because you were afraid of the possible backlash of a Muslim governor clamping down on a Muslim sect?

That is not true because they were against even the Muslim leaders. The ultimate problem is that every Muslim leader or religious sect that is not following in line with what he is doing is an enemy of God and that is how he has earmarked those he felt should be killed.

Were you part of those people that were supposed to be killed?

 

Yes and he said that publicly on the tape where he was threatening that they know where we sleep, they know the route we take to go to our offices, therefore, they will deal us.  He mentioned my name that I am the greatest unbeliever.

Did you ever meet Mohammed Yusuf?

I have never met Mohammed Yusuf in my life.

There is a problem here because the feedback we got from Abuja was that the State Security Service (SSS) said they sent 21 security reports to you which you did not act on?

The SSS never sent anything like that. As a chief security officer of a state, when you read something in the newspaper, you don’t respond just like that. You have to enquire from the security operatives whether there was anything like that and I confronted them and no security agency admitted to being the source of that malicious allegation.

As far as I am concerned, there are people who under normal circumstances have a problem and now they found a situation where they could use this to achieve their goals. I read in the papers that Buji Fai (former Commissioner of Religious Affairs) was brought to me and that I asked the security officers to go and kill him. As I am talking to you, the last time I saw him was two years, seven months ago. That was the day he walked into my office and said, “I have an advice for you if you will not be offended”, I said Buji what is this advice and why must I be offended? I appointed you my commissioner so that you can advise me and he said,  I have made up my mind to quit my job because taking salary from the government is haram (a sin) and I have decided not to do it again. So I am advising you to do same because anything western is haram. I want you to resign as Governor so that you can go to paradise, otherwise, you will die like this and you will go to hell fire. Immediately he left my office, I asked my aides to find out if the man had gone insane and because I didn’t want him to mislead the young people, I sacked him. We had just been re-elected and I decided to dissolve the cabinet because I didn’t want him to go out there and address a press conference to say he resigned, thereby given credibility to his false beliefs and misleading the unwary. I dissolved the cabinet and asked him to go and ever since I have not set my eyes on him even just to come and say hello to me. Even when he was arrested, I heard from the chairman of the local government that he was arrested and handed over to the security operatives. As I am talking to you, I have not seen him and ever since the time he left my office, we have not met in any way.

There is also the belief that perhaps why the Borno State government did not act against these people on time was that most members were children of the elite in the society and you were afraid of political backlash?

It is not true. You see, as far as I am concerned, there is no responsible father that brought up his child properly that would allow a lunatic to tell him that western education is haram. Every religion of God teaches that you should seek for knowledge. The man himself was driving cars. We were told that he was the one physically attacked the prison, he was the one who was leading the operation, we were told he had cars following him. And the cars are all products of western education and technology. It didn’t come from the moon.

So, I was the one who called on the President and Commander-in-Chief to intervene because we found that this thing was beyond Borno State. It was not Borno State alone that this man and his follower are. It happened to be that his headquarters was in Maiduguri.

There is this allegation that you gave the man 80 kilometers of land?

Well, there is nothing of such. But the truth of the matter is that even the house he was living was not his house. The man that was alleged to be sponsoring him was his in-law. The Certificate of Occupancy of the place that we demolished was in his father-in-law’s name. I asked the Commissioner of Land to bring every land document that had Mohammed Yusuf’s name to me and the man said ‘oga, it is not even his house. It is the house of his in-law.’ So, the whole story is not true. At least you have come to Borno to see things for yourself and I encourage other journalists to come around and see things for themselves rather than writing in isolation. Ninety person of the people he killed were Muslims because they don’t believe in him.

Were you surprised at the level of preparations because we hear that bombs and all manner of sophisticated weapons were freely use?

I told you that the time we knew there was danger was when some of his followers were found with bombs in one local government. That was the time that the whole thing became real and one or two of them exploded in Maiduguri just two days before the operation and killed two people in the house. So it is very surprising.

But this is an indictment. You are the Chief Security Officer of the state and these lethal weapons were acquired right under your nose and you didn’t know?

The point is that the bombs were not imported bombs; they were manufacturing them locally. So it could be that they brought people as guests, visitors. The bomb even blew one of them in Maiduguri; the person in question was in the process, doing it and it blew him up. So you see, as a developing nation, everyday, we learn more and we take measures from what we have learnt and the point is that sometimes nobody would even image that an individual will decide to wage a war against government institutions. That was a shock to all of us and we as a state government we are grateful to the president because if not for his intervention, things would have been out of control here in Borno and even Kano, the level of destruction would have been worst. The question now is that why are people not talking about the over 700 people Mohammed Yusuf killed, you are talking only about his death. We went in company of the military to see the people that he slaughtered in his house just because they don’t believe in what he was preaching. Nigerians are not talking about the innocent people he killed but rather, people are only talking about the killing of Mohammed Yusuf. We know we are working in an atmosphere of the rule of law but when you are protecting the lives of the people, casualties are bound to occur. Mohammed Yusuf as far as am concerned was a devil and God made it possible for the President and Commander-in-Chief to intervene at the right time.

You witnessed the Maitasine riots and now the Boko Haram riots. Which of the two was scarier?

Most scary was this one

Why?

Because nobody knew the kind of ammunition that they had.  Nobody knew that they had the capacity to do what they had done. The police could not contain them. It was scary because we never believed that these people were as dangerous as they exhibited during the crisis.

I thought that after they must have finished with their investigation, the police would handle them but unfortunately, the police could not contain them.

What is it in Borno State that makes it a fertile ground for these extremist tendencies?

The truth about it is that Maiduguri is the home of quaranic knowledge. People go there to learn the quaran from all over the place. Yusuf was not teaching the quaran. His followers are now being arrested and they will now tell us what they are really up to. But the truth remains that nobody can tell what they are up to because how can they be killing fellow Muslim, calling them unbelievers because they did not subscribe to the philosophy that western education is not good and should not be condoned?

The Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) accused you of being a sponsor of Boko Haram?

I am surprised because the CAN in Maiduguri went on television and commended the government for prompt action and sympathized with the government. As a responsible leader, you don’t go into issues that you knew nothing about and this is something that is capable of bringing war in any nation and for CAN to have made such a statement is highly irresponsible. The Christians in the state have commended the state government and they have also commended us for our effort in quelling the crisis before it got out of control.

But the insinuation is that Fai and Yusuf were killed because elites did not want them to talk because if they had been allowed to do so, they would have revealed those behind them?

This is a totally false accusation because every elite in the state is a target because the elites of this state are people that have gone to school. So why should any elite be involved in this useless thinking of a criminal like Yusuf? You cannot be an elite if you don’t go to school and get to a level in the society. Somebody would wake up one morning and say that everything we are doing is criminal, is haram, where would that person come from? But I think some politicians are using these people to press their political ambition which they cannot get.

Why would they do that, when you are serving a second term?

Because if you are not a member of the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) in Borno State, there will be no chance for you to win election because 90 percent of the people in Borno are in support of the ANPP and they have fought this game since 1999 and they have been losing it. Everyday, they are looking and thinking of how to take over power otherwise why should you in any way associate yourself with a group that would only end up unleashing terror on the people. Democracy is western education; I don’t think government has anything to do with them.

Colonel Abubakar Umar said that the force that was used in dislodging these people was excessive and that the killing of Yusuf was extra-judicial?

I don’t want to join issues with people. But the Umar that you are talking about was a military man. He was a military officer and he is entitled to his opinion. What I want to tell you is that people of Borno State are happy that the security forces have brought peace to them. So I have no answer to his comment. The people of the state are grateful to the President for bringing peace to them.

Could it be that the state felt that the man could never be brought to justice if he was taken to court and therefore silenced him?               

There is no element of truth in that because the police have said that he was trying to escape and I tend to believe them. Police barracks were burnt, they have guns and they were shooting. So it is not true that anybody had interest in silencing him so that he would not be able to make known those who were behind him. I don’t believe that at all. But Nigeria is a free country and everybody has the right to comment on any issue.

The President has set up a team led by National Security Adviser to probe into the Boko Haram crisis and of course the killing of Yusuf. Has that team met with you, what did they ask you?

For now, nobody has come to meet me.  But if they come we will tell them what we know about the whole thing.

Who was Buji Fai?

Buji Fai was my commissioner and a former two-time local government chairman in the state.  He was a member of my party; he was an elected chairman of his people.

What I do before appointing anybody as a commissioner in my cabinet is that I call for nominations from the various local government areas of the state.  I ask members of my party to bring nominations.  Buji served under my government for two years or so and because of his belief, I sacked him and ever since he left the government I have not seen him.

Was there anything about him that gave you an idea that he was an extremist?

Nothing until the day he walked into my office.  But I know that as a local government chairman he was upright. That was why he was elected twice. I never knew that he was an extremist until that day he entered into my office. 

Are you worried that rather than being praised over the swift manner the crisis was handled and brought under control, you are being vilified?

I am very worried because most of the people that died, the victims that were slaughtered by Yusuf, nobody is talking about them.  The lives, innocent souls that were taken nobody is talking about them. People should know the truth about Mohammed Yusuf and what the people in Borno State suffered in his hands.  Most of the comments people are making is because of what they read in the newspapers.  They are not from Maiduguri; they are not in Maiduguri.  As the Chief Security officer of a state, I know that no security officer will give security report to anybody anyhow.  But I don’t want to talk on security matters.

What is the government going to do to rehabilitate the victims of this crisis?

We are setting up machinery to find out all about the victims and we are appealing to the federal government to assist in this direction so that the lives of the victim can be rehabilitated.

 

Do you feel happy the way you handled the whole situation, is there anything you will do differently if this crisis were to erupt again?

I don’t want to  pray for any crisis to happen but if such happens again, we will appeal to the federal government again as we did before because we have only one police and one army, so in the case of anything of that nature, we have to appeal to the federal government to come to our aid.  I will like the President to intervene.

What are you going to do with the Boko Haram Sect, will it be banned?

We have had a meeting with all the religious groups, both the Muslims and the Christians and they have accepted that we should regulate them.  We are putting a new law in place to check what people are preaching and I think that will help to ensure that things are done in the appropriate way.

But there is no likelihood that those that have been indoctrinated by Yusuf will abandon what they are doing.  How do you ensure that they don’t go out tomorrow and mislead the people again?

His followers are being arrested on a daily basis and we will ensure that the arrest continues until they are completely moved away from the innocent citizens of the state so that they can go about their normal businesses without being molested.

Are you going to outlaw them?

We will not allow them any breathing space to operate in Borno State again.  That is the plan of the government.

What are you doing to curtail the activities of Yusuf?

That is the reason why we took a lot of steps.  All the traditional rulers of the state, the local government chairmen in the state are all involved in identifying the members of the sect and arresting them so that we don’t have anything like Mohammed Yusuf existing.

Some people have said that what led to the Boko Haram phenomenon is the level of poverty in the society.  What is the political leadership doing to ensure that at least people have food, education, so that they don’t fall into the hands of people who manipulate them like Mohammed Yusuf?

I think most of the states of the federation are creating different avenues to see that and you will agree with me that Nigeria is a big country with over 140 million people. It is not everything that government will do for the people; we also have to resolve to change our attitude in so many areas.  Everybody doesn’t have to work in an office.  We are encouraging people to go back to agriculture. Even the President is doing a lot in the state to engage everybody in one way or the other.  Farmers are even getting N50 billion loan from government.  All you need is a guarantor and collateral from people that you can pay back this money.

In the state, we even created a Ministry for Poverty Alleviation and Eradication to train youths so that they can be useful. But I want to assure you that we will get there. We are doing a lot. Today, in the state, so many things that were not done before are being done now. We are encouraging agriculture; we are buying tractors and renting out to the farmers virtually free so as to encourage them to be serious in their farming business. Most of the things that make civil servants to be corrupt – how to get shelter when they retire, where will their family live – government is trying to provide answers to them so that they can pay attention to their work and not think of what happens to them when they leave. We are also building modern social facilities to make the people of the state live a meaningful life.

 

 

 

Mohammed Yusuf Disgraced The State – Shehu Of Borno

When Alhaji Abubakar Ibn Umar Garbai El-Kanemi assumed office on May 31, 2009 as the new Shehu of Borno in a colourful ceremony in the historical city of Maiduguri, one prayer on his lips was that Allah should make his reign a peaceful one that will bring prosperity to his subjects. But barely two months later the peace he craved for was shattered by Mohammed Yusuf and his extremist sect, Boko Haram, that unleashed terror, killing and maiming people.

It was a highly distraught Shehu that told IKECHUKWU AMAECHI in his palace in Maiduguri that the irreverent Yusuf embarrassed not only the state but the entire Muslim community.  

 

You have been on the throne of your forefathers since May 31, how does it feel?

If I have to go by the history of Maiduguri or Borno, my grandfather Shehu Abubakar of the blessed memory was the first Shehu of Borno to be in Maiduguri. He founded the great city of Maiduguri in 1907 and he ruled up to 1937, then after his demise, his elder brother succeeded him. Thereafter, the father of the immediate past Shehu of Borno succeeded him, then the late Shehu ruled from 1937 up to 1967. After his demise my late father succeeded him. He ruled till 1974.

Then after his death, Shehu Mustapha Umar succeeded him. He ruled from 1974 up to 2009. Then by the grace of Almighty Allah, I was appointed as Shehu of Borno on March 2, 2009.

 

Is there anything that has happened since you assumed office that is beyond your estimation?

Well I took over office on March 2, 2009; my coronation was on May 31, 2009 where a large number of dignitaries within and outside the country attended the ceremony. It was very successful with the kind assistance of his Excellency, the executive governor of Borno State; the ceremony was performed colourfully and wonderfully.

Then, about two weeks back, there was a very serious disaster in Maiduguri, including other parts of the state because it affected not only Maiduguri. A religious sect called Yusuf Group or so just created a very serious problem in Maiduguri where many people, innocent people lost their lives. In fact, it has never happened in the history of Borno. The only event which I can compare to what has happened was in 1893 when Rabi came to Borno, a radical leader seized power for seven years, that is from 1893 to 1900, he conquered Borno, he took the control of the leadership and ruled for seven years. Otherwise, you cannot compare what has happened to another event because in my lifetime I have seen the political disturbances of early 1960s when so many people lost their lives. I have witnessed the Maitatsine religious crisis where people also lost their lives but you cannot compare it with what has happened recently. Honestly, the motive is still not clear because they will see somebody on the street and just assassinate the person whether he or she is a Christian, Moslem or any other religion. People in uniform were their number one targets but we thank God that with the quick intervention of the Executive Governor of Borno State by reporting the matter to Mr. President in good time and with the quick intervention of the President, normalcy was restored in a very good time. Otherwise, things could have gone very worst in the state.

 

As the traditional ruler in this place, how do you feel?

Well, I feel very bad because for complete one week, you cannot see anybody in the street. The whole state capital was taken over by the sect. People were indoors, no movement, no market, nothing. It has never happened in the history of Borno and we pray that nothing of this nature should happen again in Borno State. It was a very terrible situation at that time.

 

Did you know about this sect before this crisis?

Well, I was appointed recently, I have never had his crusade and I have never seen him. When that thing happened, the security guards attached to the palace came in and told me that there was a disturbance in the town and I said, what is happening, they said they have got a report that Maiduguri new prison was burnt, police stations were burnt, including public and private buildings, so at that point they asked me to request for more re-enforcement because there are few policeman attached to the palace. So I used all my lines to get to the police but it was difficult for me to get across to them. The only mobile service available was the MTN and even that could not do the job. So everything was left in the hands of God, we kept on praying, then later on with the intervention of the governor and with the deployment of security men, normalcy was restored, it was terrible.

 

Are you surprised at the level of ammunitions, bombs that this group was able to gather?

Honestly, I was very surprised because it was something which one could never expect. Because I don’t know, with the tight security in Nigeria, such dangerous weapons to be imported into the country down up to Maiduguri, honestly one has to be surprised because once something gets into the country, it is thoroughly checked by security agents but I don’t know how these people got their way to import such dangerous weapons and brought them down to the northern part of the country and to Maiduguri. It is that a miracle.

These people are saying that they are propagating the teachings of Prophet Mohammed and advancing the course of Islam. By virtue of your position, you ought to be the religious head of this community. Do you agree with their teachings?

Islam teaches us how to be tolerant, how to be law abiding citizens and how we can love each other, Islam never teaches violence. So what they are doing is completely different because their first target as I was made to understand was religious leaders, law enforcement agencies. So there is no where in the Quran which says you should fight with one another and create problems. I have never seen it and I have never heard it, so what they are doing is best known to them. It is entirely different nobody knows what their mission is. Because even if they have something in mind, they could have contacted the lawful authority, following the due process, let them go to court or let them report to the higher authority if they are aggrieved, But for them to take laws into their hands and fighting with each other in the name of religion honestly is only best known to them. We thank God for the quick intervention; otherwise anybody who is seen in Maiduguri would have been wiped off by this group who claim to be fighting in the name of religion. One thing I was made to understand is that these people are not indigenes of Borno State and one thing is that anytime a security problem arises, it is master-minded by a non-indigene of the state. Borno is home of peace and hospitality, we are very tolerant with people and we allow people to come in but they come and create problems for us.

 But they are saying that western education is a sin. Don’t you agree with them?

Never! The Quran says that you can go to anywhere to seek knowledge. So the question of saying western is haram or sin is not embedded in the Quran. It is just their own making and that is why I said I don’t know their motive.

 Every Islamic scholar or personality you talk to will tell you Islam is a religion of peace. Is it not contradictory that at every point in time there is this violence in Islam?

I have no idea of that. Islam teaches us how to respect each other, live with each other without crisis. Islam never teaches violence.

There is uproar in the international community that Yusuf should not have been killed. Do you agree with such sentiment that his death amounts to a violation of his human rights?

I don’t think you have seen the number of people killed by Yusuf in this state. I looked at one of the newspapers; it was up to 800. The reason why he was killed as far as I am concerned is best known to the security agents. But all I know is that he killed so many people, he killed not less than eight 800 people according to the newspaper reports I have seen. It is rather unfortunate, his intention was to take over every thing but by the will of the almighty Allah, he was overpowered.

Are you embarrassed that this is coming a few months into your tenure?

It is very embarrassing. No traditional ruler will like such a thing to happen in his domain because really, it is a disgrace. What he has done is a disgrace to the state, disgrace to our community, and the only thing is that Yusuf is not from this state and it is sad that people from other states come here to cause problems for us.

Now that you are here, what are you going to do with your position to ensure that there is religious harmony in the state?

We will keep on praying to the almighty Allah to guide us and assist us. At my level I invited the district heads in my domain, the village heads, the ulamas and instructed them to report any people of suspicious character  to the law enforcement agents and at the same time, I told them to be very patient even if there is anything bad they have noticed, let them not take the laws into their hands, let them report it to the appropriate authority and the governor has also summoned all the traditional rulers, he has spoken to us, he has also invited all the religious leaders including the Muslims and the Christians, he has talked to them to be tolerant and if there is anything bad on their side let them report it to the police or security agents for appropriate action. And he advised every one of us not to take the laws into our hands no matter what happens. Our subjects are law abiding citizens, Borno is home of peace and hospitality and by the grace of the Almighty Allah, it shall remain like that.

World Cup Fever Grips South Africa

Ever imagined an experience that money can’t buy? Well, that is what South Africa is promising anyone who is privileged to be in Madiba’s country for the 2010 FIFA World Cup, writes Ikechukwu Amaechi, who just came back from Durban.

She is an ordinary working-class folk. When she spoke, it was apparent that she did not attend any Ivy League college. But she is an enchanting woman. In her very simple, albeit uncanny way, with spoken English that is anything but Queen’s, she was able to rivet an international audience, people from all over the world, including men and women schooled in the delicate art of communication.

Florina Mabhalala, known in the captivating port city of Durban as “Mama 2010,” has become a metaphor for the incredible zeal and single-mindedness with which the Southern African country is pursuing its rather exotic goal of giving anyone who comes to the country for the 2010 FIFA World Cup a “money can’t buy experience.” She is the woman who has been assigned the very challenging task, by the eThekwini Municipality, of telling thousands of people who flock the city everyday the story of the Moses Mabhida Stadium in Durban, Kwazulu-Natal.

Mama 2010’s patriotic fervor is infectious. Her entire world now revolves around the FIFA World Cup, which will hold next year between June 11 and July 11. But she is not alone. The whole country, literally speaking, is on fire, convulsed with the fever which only the “Beautiful Game” can induce. Right from the Oliver Thambo International Airport in Johannesburg, it became obvious that South Africans cannot wait to host the world in 2010. There was a dance group at the arrival hall, welcoming visitors. “Indeed, football is in the air,” exclaimed Kenyan Journalist, Robert Kebba.

Lee Thomas, chairman of the Match Hospitality committee explains why. “For the first time ever, the continent of Africa is hosting the world’s most prestigious football tournament, the FIFA World Cup. For the host nation, this spectacular competition means not only intense preparation, but excitement and anticipation to match.”

And the excitement is, indeed, palpable, animated by frenzied preparations. The entire country has become one huge construction site with multi-billion dollar projects that include stadiums, airports, seaports, railways, roads, hotels and other hospitality projects going on simultaneously. “The huge anticipation for the successful hosting of the 2010 FIFA World Cup has united this country more than anything else,” Mabhalala told Daily Independent in Durban. “And you know what?” she asks smiling. “When spider webs unite, they can tie up a lion. That is the philosophy that is driving this national ambition. We want to surprise the world.”

The game will be hosted in nine cities, while the matches will be played in ten stadiums. In Johannesburg, there are the Soccer City and Ellis Park Stadiums, Mbombela Stadium in Nelspruit, Royal Bafokeng Stadium, Rustenburg; Free State Stadium, Mangaung/Bloemfontein; Green Point Stadium, Cape Town; Peter Mokaba Stadium, Polokwane; Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium, Nelson Mandela Bay/Port Elizabeth; Loftus Versfeld Stadium, Tshwane/Pretoria; and the Moses Mabhida Stadium in Durban.

Six out of the ten stadiums are brand new and the Durban Stadium is one of them. Mabhalala, who had no previous experience in construction work, admits that the stadium project has radically transformed her. “The stadium is part of my history because I have been here since the beginning and have watched in awe how this beautiful edifice is being created slowly but steadily out of nothing. My life will never be the same again. I can’t wait for the World Cup to kick off next year.”

Located in the heart of the Kings Park Sporting Precinct, the stadium is a world class state-of-the-art, multifunctional complex. At a cost of R2.6 billion, South Africans want the Moses Mabhida Stadium to serve not only as a football field but a tourist centre that will, for long, remain a landmark. “The stadium has been specifically designed to ensure it will be active 365 days a year, creating a dynamic entertainment node for the city. The expansive 350m centre arch will become a ‘world first’ tourist attraction as a high tech cable car transports visitors to the viewing platform a staggering 106m above the pitch. From this vantage point visitors can experience spectacular panoramic views over the ocean and the city. The southern side of the stadium offers an adventure walk, enabling visitors to walk 550 steps to the viewing platform,” Mama 2010 explains. A high-tech cable car will take visitors up to the highest point of the arch from where they will have a panoramic view of the city  “The stadium got its design inspiration from the South African flag with the Y shaped grand arch representing unity of a sport-loving nation. The two legs on the southern side of the stadium come together to form a single footing on the northern side, symbolizing the unity of a once divided nation.”

Mabhalala further explains that the stadium has been designed and built in accordance with the latest international safety and security requirements, with special attention given to issues of crowd control and evacuation procedures. With their sight firmly trained beyond the 2010 World Cup, the stadium is being built in compliance with the latest international sporting codes “to enable it accommodate soccer, rugby and athletics events as well as affording the city of Durban the opportunity to host music concerts, cultural events, parades, motor events and more.”

When completed in October, the stadium will have a sitting capacity of 70,000, with a potential to expand to 85,000 seats. It will comfortably take 1000 cars in its parking lot and the area around the stadium is being upgraded to create a safe, user-friendly precinct. Mama 2010 explains that when completed, there will be a People’s Park, a large open space, with sports fields, ablution and changing facilities, children’s play areas and an open and relaxed restaurant. There will also be a Heroes walk on the People’s Park, which is a promenade walkway, providing access to the stadium from the city centre as well as a 1km circular track for walking, jogging or cycling. It is expected that seven matches will be played in the Durban – five group matches, one second and a semi-final match. “There is no doubt that the Moses Mabhida Stadium’s iconic design has created an unmistakable silhouette on the Durban skyline,” proclaims Nzwandile Jacks, a football buff in the city.

But Durban is not alone. In preparation for the World Cup, the entire South African landscape is being transformed. From Capetown to Kimberley, from Bloemfontein to Nelspruit, the entire country is being rebuilt. A section of the small airport at Kimberley has been closed because massive construction work is going on. Yet, no game will be played in the city. The road from Kimberley to Johannesburg is being rehabilitated. A new international airport, King Shaka international Airport, is being built in La Mercy, north of Durban. Cities are beautified and many towns are “going for green.” In fact, in its bid to host what it calls a “a carbon neutral 2010 FIFA World Cup” the city is “growing rural communities into ‘tree-preneurs’ who are empowered and employed to collect seeds, grow trees and maintain them.”

Aware of its poor reputation in terms of security, the country is mounting an intricate security web that will secure lives and property. In the City of Durban alone, over 200 cameras have already been strategically placed and closed circuit televisions (CCTV) have become ubiquitous. An official explained that an integrated security system involving safety, security and disaster management teams, capable of resolving any emergency, has been put in place, with a substantial increase in the number of highly trained staff. Security and traffic incidents in most of the host cities are to be linked to electronic information boards that will relay information to drivers on the road. In most of the cities too, public transport information call centres that will assist commuters and tourists, providing them with travel option information are being set up.

A security official in Kimberley who spoke anonymously says the CCTV cameras would ensure the safety of all who would come to South Africa for the championship. “Complementing the efforts of the various departments, including the South African Police Services (SAPS),, Metro Police, Fire Departments, Health Departments and Medical Services, we will present a formidable front that has the capacity to resolve any emergency.”

 Dr. Danny Jordan, chairman of the local organizing committee, concurs. Speaking at a media chat organized as part of the activities of the CNN MultiChoice African Journalist Awards, Jordan said the country is ready for the world. Obviously enamoured by the success of the Confederations Cup, he said each of the 64 games to be played within one month will be a memorable experience. Comparing the games with the 2006 World Cup, he said over three million people are expected at the games and more than 300 broadcasters, making it one of the most broadcast events in the world.

Kalusha Bwalya, former Captain of the Zambian national football team and President of the Football Association of Zambia agrees. Speaking with Daily Independent, Bwalya says he is excited to be associated with the preparations.

 

There is no arguing the fact that the entire country has been mobilized. Thousands of specialist volunteers such as medical practitioners, translators and information technology experts have signed up to the event.

“In South Africa Today, we wake up in the morning breathing the air of the World Cup and we go to sleep dreaming about it. By the time the championship is over, South Africa would have re-invented itself,” says Slindile Khanyile, a university student, who claims to be a volunteer. “We are all waiting to welcome the world.”

That, now, is the swan song in the Southern African country, with its rich history, breathtaking natural beauty and vibrant modern cities. Lee Thomas of the Match Hospitality group sums it up: “Our ultimate goal is to give the estimated three million people that will come for the games a money can’t buy experience.”

Boko Haram: The Road To Hell

 

Two women who watched as three men with them were slaughtered, literally, during the Boko Haram crisis that rocked Borno State recently tell their story to Ikechukwu Amaechi

 

As Patricia Ibe hunkered down in one corner of the room taking a call on telephone from a man she never met and may never meet, only one thought ran through her mind. That may be the last call she will take in her life. She may well be dead in a matter of minutes and the man speaking with her on telephone could be the messenger of death. But it was a call she must take if her already precarious situation was not to get worse. The man talking with Patricia was a soldier with the Borno State security outfit called “Operation Flush.” They were coming to invade the headquarters of the fringe Islamic sect, Boko Haram, which professes the rather queer doctrine that western education is a sin. And Patricia, a 22-year-old Accountancy student was one of the dozens of people held hostage by the extremists who promised to marry them and ensure they never lacked anything again if only they would “cooperate.” “A man who identified himself as an Operation Flush operative called and asked if I was Patricia and I answered yes,” she with her voice shaking. It took her some minutes to rein in her emotions before continuing. “He said they were coming to rescue us and asked where we were. I said we were at their camp and he said they were coming to bomb the place and that we should pray because it was going to be a battle so that we would not be caught in a crossfire. He said if we come out alive, we should thank God but that they would do everything possible to reduce casualty of innocent people.” When the phone went dead at the other end, Patricia hugged her friend, 14-year-old Chidinma Obigwe. It was their idea of saying goodbye to each other, two people yoked together by an adversity way beyond their wildest imagination. “I was just telling God that whatever sin I had committed, he should pardon me and have pity on my soul,” she said, her eyes now misty. The harrowing ordeal of Patricia and Chidinma started on Sunday, July 26, the day Mohammed Yusuf and his followers launched their jihad on a system they believed was evil. They wanted to overthrow the government and seize power, kill as many kaffirs (infidels and unbelievers) as they can and install the system of government they believe will be a one-way ticket to heaven. One of the hallmarks of this system is that women will neither go to school nor work because they are not supposed to suffer but stay at home, wait on their men, enjoy and be enjoyed. While Chidinma, a secondary school girl was living with the assistant Pastor of the National Evangelical Mission in Wulari, Maiduguri, Sylvester Nseobong, Patricia, a parishioner lives outside but stayed back after church service on that fateful day to help out with a meeting by the elders of the church. Because it was late to go home when the meeting ended, she decided to spend the night in the parish house so that she could go early in the next morning. It was a decision that nearly caused her life. Both Patricia and Chidinma were sleeping when their nightmare started. “I was sleeping when our assistant Pastor woke me at about 11.30 pm,” Patricia recollects. The Pastor was on edge over the sporadic shooting of guns and deafening explosions. He also woke Chidinma up. When the clatter of guns became louder and sounded nearer, the three decided to leave the Pastor’s house and moved into the church believing that the intruders will have a sense of what is sacred. They were wrong. Of the five people that went to take refuge in the “House of God,” only two came out alive – Patricia and Chidinma. And they came out alive because they are women. “They said we now belonged to them,” Chidinma recollects. Patricia narrates how the men who were slaughtered like animals begged for mercy. “They were on their knees begging, but the Boko Haram people said there was no mercy for the men; that they will kill all the men and marry the women. They said they would take us to an Arab country and marry us there.” For a 14-year-old, Chidinma’s experience inside the church where she watched her guardian stabbed to death and two other people beheaded is bound to haunt her for some time to come. Two weeks after, the ruins left behind by the Boko Haram faithful were still there as evidence of what the Rev. Daniel Egboka, Chairman, Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria (Borno State chapter) and senior Pastor at the National Evangelical Mission, Maiduguri, describes as a “consequence of hatred.” Inside the church, the teenager picks her steps as she moves from one end to the other, showing where they were when they were attacked. “That was where the security man was killed,” she explains. “And this is where our pastor’s elder brother was killed,” she further explains while bending down to pick something. “And these are his bone and remnants of his clothes still at the spot where he was burnt,” she said holding human bone and a charred piece of cloth as she stood up. Was she not afraid? A disarming and innocent smile dances on her lips. “I was but I am beginning to overcome the fear. I wish it never happened and there are moments I wake up with a start but I am coping,” she says. Watching her, it is difficult to believe that she just came back from the pit of hell. Patricia interjects. “I pinch myself every now and then to know if I am the person because I never believed I will live again.” Their ordeal that started on Sunday night did not end until Wednesday when soldiers invaded the Boko Haram camp and set them free. Each of the hours they lived for those three harrowing days was like living on borrowed time. They were tortured psychologically. They endured hunger and saw death at the closest of quarters. “It was a journey to hell,” Patricia mourns. Each of the three days came with its own horror. When they were taken to the camp in the early hours of Monday morning, there were only two of them and they were welcomed with a death threat. “When we got to the camp, one of them said they should pour petrol on us and burn us but another one intervened and said they should not do that yet.” That was the first day. On the second day, they were ordered to wash all the blood stained regalia of their members until “they are as white as snow.” And on the third day they witnessed a battle in which they could easily have been killed in crossfire. Patricia describes the scene: “When the soldiers started shooting, it became apparent it was a war. The women were screaming and wailing and when we wanted to come out, all of them will say go inside. It was only when bullets started entering the place that we forced ourselves out.” When they came out, corpses littered everywhere, some of the dead being the captives, evidence of the inevitable collateral damage of war. But most were members of the sect. Patricia feels bad about the security situation in the country. “Nigeria is in trouble,” she quips, adding “I don’t know where we are headed. Nobody is safe.” Her mother wants her to come back to the East where she believes she will be far away from the extremists. She says not yet. “My mother has asked me to come back home. But I am finishing from school this year. I don’t intend to stay here but if I leave now, I will start all over again, going to look for admission. I will be finishing by December. I will wait till then but they are calling me to come back,” she said. What saddens her most is the condemnation that is trailing the controversial death of Mohammed Yusuf. Human rights activists and indeed some section of the international community insist that the man was killed extra-judicially. But Patricia wonders why that should be an issue. “I heard that the man was killed and some people are angry,” she said, her face puckered. “When I heard it, I said where are we headed in this country? Somebody that caused the death of more than 2000 people? He deserved death. But she is neither the only one who is under pressure to return home nor who thinks that Yusuf’s violent death was just deserts. On both issues she has in her pastor a kindred spirit. Rev Egboka is also under pressure to “leave the North.” “My wife is already in the East. She cannot bear this. She called me this morning to bring the children home. I will go and buy the tickets for three of them to go home. I am a target and as a typical Igbo man, I have to sit down and have a rethink and know what to do next.” For a man that has lived in the North for almost 40 years, the only thing that is still keeping him there today is the fact that the arsonists burnt everything even his bank documents. Asked to comment on the outcry against the killing of the Boko Haram leader, he was visibly angry. “But what about the people he killed? How many people did he kill? Is the international community or those frowning at his death also not concerned about the people he killed? How many followers of his were even killed, all because of him. Why should they be blaming the police for killing him? What would the police have done? I was not there, but I leant that when the man was captured, he said he would not say anything until he reached Abuja and he felt that if he got to Abuja, he may be set free. “Those human rights activists, are they not concerned about the policemen that were killed? What of the soldiers that were killed? Are they not human beings? Why should they be concerned about only one death out of several? Did Yusuf try those he killed in law court? So, I don’t blame the police at all. He deserved death.” At the camp of the Boko Haram, which security men christened “Ground Zero,” soldiers have cordoned off the entire area. A guided tour of the ruins that was once the headquarters of the dreaded “Mohammed Yusuf People” revealed how ungodly men exploit God’s name in furthering their diabolical agenda. There were the slaughtering slabs where victims were allegedly slaughtered. There were the drums of chemicals used in making bombs. There were police and army uniforms. It was a land of horror. As Patricia aptly described it, a journey to the camp is a journey to hell and in every such journey, only very few live to tell their stories. Patricia and Chidinma are two of such lucky people. Little wonder Patricia thinks her life is now bonus. “When I was there, I thought I would never live again. I went to the land of the dead and came back. I challenged God. I told him that I learnt he saved Daniel in the lion’s den in the olden days and that if he can save me in my own time, I will serve him forever with my body and spirit. Since I came out, I have been trying to keep that promise,” she said choking back tears.

Digital Revolution And Africa’s Media (1)

On Wednesday, I left Nigeria for South Africa for the CNN MultiChoice African Journalist Awards 2009 which held on Saturday at the prestigious International Conference Centre in Durban. My trip was courtesy of MultiChoice Nigeria and part of the two-day programme was a panel discussion on the “Impact of Digital Media in Africa.” I was one of the four panelists selected from across Africa that included Kim Norgaard, CNN South African Bureau Chief, Duncan Mcleod, Associate Editor, Financial Mail of South Africa, and Emmanual Juma, Head of Nation Television (NTV), Kenya, before an audience of over 200 people that included some of the best journalists from around the world.

The impact of digital revolution on the media in Africa is an issue that has caught my interest since my days at the Cardiff University, Wales. Therefore, I had no hesitation whatsoever when Caroline Creasy called from the Corporate Affairs Office of MultiChoice Africa in Johannesburg two weeks before the awards to say I had been selected as one of the four panelists in a programme to be moderated by Jeremy Maggs, anchor of eNews, South Africa.  It was an interesting session that harped on the need for the African media, particularly the print media, to reinvent itself in the face of digital revolution or face difficult times.

The most difficult question was asked by Nigeria’s Tolu Ogunlesi, a freelance journalist who won this year’s Arts and Culture Award. With almost everybody who has a camera and mobile phone being able to tell a story real-time and with the influence of citizen journalism becoming more perversive, will the print media die naturally, he asked. My answer was contained in the paper I prepared for the panel discussion, which I reproduce below:

Advancements in technology, indubitably, have helped in transforming journalism globally and Africa is not left out in this revolution. Unlike before, news is no farther than the click of a mouse.

This revolution in news gathering and dissemination is driven primarily by the exponential growth in the use of mobile phones and the internet. In Africa, like in any other part of the world, digital media and internet have become an indispensable part of the media landscape.

Ever since Tim Berners-Lee, a computer scientist at the Cern Particle Physics Laboratory in
Switzerland, invented the World Wide Web (www) almost two decades ago (1989/90), journalism has undergone radical transformation. At the heart of this change is the unconventional media or what Dan Gillmor of the San Jose Mercury News, calls the We Media. This We Media, in itself, is driven by the new journalism fad called the blog, a digital newswire, facilitated by the proliferation of the internet, low production and distribution costs, and the ease with which what is called the  Really Simple Syndication (RSS) is used. All these are different components of this powerful push-pull publishing concept. 

The question has been asked severally; Why blogging?  The attraction of personal publishing lies in its ability to change the power structures in journalism, giving yesterday’s readers the option of being today’s journalists and tomorrow’s preferred news aggregators. Teenage kids, Rupert Murdoch, Chairman and Chief Executive of the News Corporation, noted in a speech to the American Society of Newspaper Editors, on April 13, 2005, “Want news on demand, continuously updated. They want a point of view about not just what happened, but why it happened…they want to be able to use the information in a larger community.”    Blogging merges this democratisation of the media with speed of news delivery. “The central virtue of blogging, I’ve decided, is that in the proverbial agora, or online marketplace of ideas, bloggers are like Socrates on speed,” writes Chris Mooney, the 2005 winner of the Scientific America’s Science and Technology Web award. The result is that today blogs number well over 30 million worldwide, promoted by the often-free blogging service providers like Blogger and WordPress. An estimated 75,000 new blogs are created daily, an average of one new blog a second. 

The near total dominance of the new media technologies has engendered new journalism practices. Thus we now have networked journalism, citizen journalism, the rise of social networks like Facebook, Twitters, My Space, etc., as means of self-presentation. The increasing reliance of the mainstream media on this new media for breaking news all point to what amounts to a paradigm shift in the global practice of journalism. For instance, moments after the execution of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein on December 30, 2006, the graphic details were in the public domain. Interestingly, the ‘New Media’ beat the ‘Mainstream Media’ to what arguably was the biggest story of 2006. An amateur video shot using a camera phone was the major source of news on Saddam’s execution. The amateur video containing low-quality footage of the entire execution drama was also notable for the fact that, unlike the official footage, it included sound: witnesses could be heard taunting Saddam. That was also the case in the September 7, 2005 terrorist attack in London when eyewitness camera phone photos became a major part in the media’s coverage of the bombings.

We have also seen what happened recently in the post-election crisis in Iran and the death of Michael Jackson where the social networks and blogs played an invaluable role as the primary source of information. We also saw that happen during the last presidential election in the U.S. where the major candidates, including Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, declared their presidential not by addressing a press conference in the traditional manner but by releasing the information on their websites. 

 

Unarguably, the We Media comes with enormous capabilities which seem to give it an edge over the mainstream media, particularly the print version. The blogosphere, “Can do lots of things better than we can currently do – including fragmentation and connectivity and community. It is wonderfully enabling, intoxicatingly democratic and exhilaratingly anarchic,” says Alan Rusbridger. Traditional printing compared to personal publishing remains an expensive process. As Shel Israel, author of the book Naked Conversations puts it: “In the information age, the newspaper has become a cumbersome and inefficient distribution mechanism. If you want fast delivery of news, paper is a stage coach competing with jet planes.”   

Is personal publishing about to consign magazines and newspapers to the garbage bin of history? Robin Sloan and Matt Thompson think so.  “The year is 2014, and people have access to a breadth and depth of information unimaginable in an earlier age. Everyone contributes in some way. Everyone takes part to create a living, breathing mediascape. However, the press, as you knew it, has ceased to exist. Twentieth century news organisations are an afterthought, a lonely remnant of a not too distant past,” the two
California bloggers proclaim.  

I disagree with this viewpoint. While it is true that the blogosphere poses enormous challenges to the mainstream media, however, over the years strong symbiotic relationships have evolved between blogging and journalism, with the former acting as both a check on journalistic inaccuracy and source of opinion on which journalists increasingly rely.  

Personal publishing carries its own baggage, which remain the strength of the mainstream media, particularly the print media. Unlike blogging, traditional print media is still the custodian of the core values of journalism – accuracy, objectivity, reliability and pursuit of truth. Consumers of journalism don’t seem to be in a hurry to sacrifice these values on the alter speed. “There are snakes in this new media ‘Garden of Eden,” writes Patrick Baltatzis. “Rumours seem to have a natural habitat in the blog world, as well as ranting and personal opinions. The issues of trust and reliability are difficult.” 

Aware of the challenges posed by the new era, magazines and newspapers are changing the ways they had hitherto approached journalism. Not only have they gone online, establishing their own websites, many in a bid to cultivate new audiences have resorted to blogging some beats or sections that ordinarily would have run in print. 

They do this by either encouraging their staff to blog or hiring the services of professional bloggers. Going online has also enabled them to streamline their operations, changing the way they write and edit stories and interacting more with the audience. Besides, in 2005, Bill Gates predicted that the Internet would attract $30 billion in advertising revenue annually within the next five years. Realising that their traditional revenue sources are increasingly being eroded as advertising migrates to the internet, the print media have also gone online in order to put their hand on the online advertising pie. 

Where will all these ultimately leave the print media in the 21^st century? Only time will tell. But as Rusbridger noted: “The newspaper of the future may or may not look like a newspaper – it could be printed on paper, on a screen or exist in electronic ink on a sheet of plastic. But it will behave like a newspaper.”

 

All I have tried to do so far is to make the point, as pointedly as I can, that the transforming role of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) in journalism practices cannot be over-emphasized. The institution of media as we know it is being transformed virtually beyond recognition. And this transformation is particularly fundamental in the way news is gathered now and disseminated. As Eben Greyling, President MultiChoice Africa, told me yesterday in an interview, “If you compare news gathering three, four years ago with today, you will appreciate the difference. Few years ago, if a story is 48 hours late, it could still be fresh but today, if it is two hours late, it may well be an old and stale story because there are different ways of getting information now. There are many more “journalists” out there today who use technology to tell the story, particularly through blogging.”

  

Digital Revolution And Nigerian Media

How has digital revolution enhanced journalism profession in my country, Nigeria? My answer is that it has had the same dramatic effect like in other countries of Africa and indeed the world. Again, the internet and mobile phones are the major drivers of this revolution. In a sense, it could be said that the impact has even been more dramatic in Nigeria, given the fact that the Global System of Mobile Communications (GSM), which many African countries embraced years ago, only made its debut in the country in 2001. While Nigerian Journalists are increasingly using the mobile phone as their primary reporting tool needed to collect text, photo and video, this content is often distributed via the internet, creating not only a convergence in the internet and mobile medium, but also a paradigm shift in the practice of journalism. Simply put, these new media technologies have engendered new journalism practices in Nigeria.

Like I said earlier, we are late starters in Nigeria. The good thing, though, is that when we do, there is no stopping us. Only eight years ago the Nigerian Telecommunications Limited (NITEL) was still a monopoly and until 2001, there were only 400,000 active NITEL subscribers. Therefore, there were less than 500,000 telephone lines in a country with a population estimated at 140 million. Of course, before 2001 only a few journalists, if any, had personal telephone lines.

But that changed with the privatization of the telecommunications industry and the coming on stream of GSM and the Coded Division Multiple Access (CDMA), simply called fixed line operators. The first GSM operator, Econet Wireless started operations on August 6, 2001. Two days later, August 8, 2001, MTN Nigeria came on board. Two years later Globacom was also licensed by the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) and a GSM. Etisalat is the latest addition to the growing list. The remarkable thing is that in eight years, these four GSM companies have rolled out more than 60 million mobile telephone lines. This is phenomenal. Today, all Nigerian journalists have mobile phones; most of them have more than one. Beside the Blackberry, all the GSM firms and many of the CDMA companies are internet providers.  This has made access to the internet easy and convenient.

Beside the GSM, the internet has made access to data and information unlimited, thus impacting greatly on media practice. Because most Nigerian journalists have access to the internet in their offices, homes and on their mobile phone, they are able to access, process and deliver news in real time as they break. Like their colleagues in other parts of the world, Nigerian journalists, now, also blog and local newspapers are beginning to maximize the use of the Facebook, Twitters, My Space, etc.

The recent introduction of DStv Mobile by MultiChoice Africa, in collaboration with various partners, in Nigeria, Kenya and Namibia, which enables consumers in these countries to watch television on the move, whether they are waiting in a queue or held up in traffic is also another challenge to the print media. Appreciating the fact that the concept of mobile television is a revolution, Nigerian newsrooms are increasing adapting to the digital age, developing cost-effective ideas in multi-media development and integration. They are using advancements in digital technology to get and process information much more easily and in real-time. Aware of the enormous challenges posed by digital revolution, they are using the same technology to cultivate, interact and retain their target audience.

With an estimated 30 percent internet penetration, many Nigerians, particularly the young and upwardly mobile elite now read newspapers online. This has made it imperative that if they must remain relevant, Nigerian media, particularly the print media, must also hitch a ride on the fast moving online wagon. That they have done. Today, all Nigerian newspapers publish online.

At the Daily Independent Newspaper where I work, our website is http://www.independentngonline.com. And the impact is amazing. A usage statistics generated by Webalizer Version 2.01 on July 6, 2009 for the last 12 months (August 2008 – July 6, 2009) shows that the site had a total of 244,146,752 hits and 189,905,030 files were opened. In fact, in June 2009 alone, there were a total 0f 30,067,223 hits (an average of 1 million hits a day) and 23,381,650 files were opened. This by far outstrips the number of copies we sell daily on the streets.  

In a very fundamental way, therefore, Nigerian newsrooms have caught the bug of the digital revolution which has taken the practice of journalism to the next level globally. They are adapting well to the realities of the digital age by integrating digital best practices in their day-to-day operations. This has enabled them develop cost-effective ideas in multimedia development and integration.

 

IKECHUKWU AMAECHI

EDITOR, DAILY INDEPENDENT NEWSPAPER, LAGOS

FRIDAY, JULY 17, 2009 (DURBAN, SOUTH AFRICA)  

As Amaechi Restores The Garden City’s Lost Glory

By Ikechukwu Amaechi

Published: June 6, 2009

 

On May 29, Nigerians marked ten years of unbroken civilian rule. It is the first time since Nigeria became independent 49 years ago that civilians would superintend over the affairs of the country for so long without the uncouth and self-serving intrusion of the military. That in itself is a significant development that calls for celebration. But not many are in celebrative mood. And the reason is simple.

Expectation was quite high in 1999 that Nigeria, having once again joined the League of Nations where the people, through the power of the ballot box, determine who governs them will also reap the dividends of democracy. This has not happened. Instead, the reverse is the case. Despite the unprecedented revenue that accrued from the sale of crude oil in the last ten years, the woes of the people and the country itself have never been more pronounced. Life in Nigeria in the last ten years has become insufferable and beyond the pale.

In the circumstance, it is easy to give in to despair and remain forlorn.

But in this darkened political firmament, there are still a few bright stars whose achievements tend to remind us that all hope is not lost. Through their achievements, they are radiating positive aura, sending out a strong message that at the other end of this darkened tunnel of gloom and despondency, there is indeed the chance that we may encounter the glowing light of triumph.

One of such rays of hope is Rotimi Chibuike Amaechi, the Governor of Rivers State. When his colleagues were celebrating their second year in office on May 29, he didn’t join them because he is yet to spend two years. A victim of former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s “jackboot democracy,” Amaechi won the Peoples Democratic Party’s (PDP) gubernatorial primary election in Rivers State where he was Speaker of the House of Assembly for eight years but was unilaterally disqualified by Obasanjo.

He was only sworn in on October 26, 2007 when the Supreme Court, in a bold affirmation of the essence of internal democracy, ruled that as the winner of the primary election, he, rather than Celestine Omehia (the man who was given the ticket), ought to have contested the April 14, 2007 governorship election. Therefore, if the PDP won the election, Amaechi, who the people elected as their candidate, should be the rightful occupant of the Brick House (Rivers State Government House) rather than Omehia, who was whimsically imposed on a hapless party by a man who was playing God.

For a man who has a four-year term, 19 months may not be enough time to come to a definite conclusion on his ability to deliver. But it is time enough to determine where he is headed. When Amaechi took over the reins of power from Omehia, Rivers, technically speaking, was in a state of war. Gunmen and cultists, who became Lords of the Manor between 2003 and 2007, held the state hostage, almost making it ungovernable. Amaechi had two options – pacify them at the expense of the common good as his predecessors did or call their bluff. He chose to do the latter. But that was after the militants spurned all effort to make them realize that peace and development are two sides of the same coin. Amaechi believes that there must be a dividing line between criminality and genuine agitation for the improvement of the awful lot of the people of Niger Delta. That decision has paid off. Today, any visitor to Port Harcourt, Nigeria’s famed Garden City, in the past one year will attest that the once seedy capital is gradually reclaiming its lost glory.

Just like Governor Babatunde Fashola in Lagos, Amaechi’s administration is investing massively in infrastructure. One of the greatest problems of the city is lack of good road networks. Amaechi is tackling this problem headlong with the construction of new roads and expansion and dualisation of old ones. Literally, he has turned the state into a massive construction yard.

The Rumuola/Rumuokwuta road which links Aba and Ikwerre roads is being dualised in a bid to ease the flow of traffic in Port Harcourt. There are also the Ada-George/Airport Road that runs from Agip Junction on Ikwerre Road to the Port Harcourt International Airport, Omagwa, which will connect the old Port Harcourt city with a new one – Greater Port Harcourt city. These roads and many more are not only dual carriage ways but come with covered drainages, paved walkways, median, trees and flowers and street lights. 

Flyovers are also being constructed to ease the grueling traffic situation in the city. But these roads are not limited to Port Harcout as the rural areas have their fair share. But the most fascinating aspects of this urban renewal project are the Greater Port Harcourt City and the public, private partnership-funded Rainbow Town Estate. Lack of visionary leadership has left Port Harcourt one of the most congested and seedy cities in Nigeria. These two projects will reverse the situation. When completed, the Rainbow Town Estate is expected to have 1000 housing units and the state government’s contribution is only the land. The entire project will be funded by the First Bank. The idea behind the new Greater Port Harcourt city is the decongestion of the old city which is being restored to its old glory with the demolition of illegal structures particularly along the waterfronts, planting of trees for greenery and building of recreation parks.

The first thing he did when he assumed office was to return mission schools to their owners and thereafter declared a state of emergency in the education sector. His firm belief that a country can only toy with the primary education of its citizenry at its own peril convinced him to take over the funding of primary education from the local governments. That move has proved strategic. Today the government is building 250 new primary schools spread across all the 23 local governments of the state and ultra modern secondary schools that will have state-of-the-art facilities.

He is a student of the school of integrated development that strives not to leave out any sector; which explains why his health programmes are as grandiose as education and urban renewal.

David Iyofor, his media aide says the Governor is driven by the passion to rebuild the state and the zeal to leave enduring legacies of development and prosperity. There is no doubt that he is on the right track.

But the undeniable success of the few oases of competence, like Fashola and Amaechi, in the desert of leadership ineptitude called Nigeria raises a fundamentally question. Why are they succeeding where others only see failure? Why were the governors who ruled these states for eight years, at the peak of the oil boom, not able to achieve in those years what these governors have achieved in less than two years?

The answer lies in the vision and sincerity of purpose of the leadership.

But there is another issue. Imagine what the long suffering indigenes of Rivers State would have lost if the Justices of the Supreme Court hadn’t the presence of mind to affirm the supremacy of the people by insisting that the man who won a primary election should be the candidate at the general election? As I stated last week, we play the ostrich when we divorce our problematic general elections from the injustice at the primaries. When only one man takes it upon himself to decide who contests elections, no-matter what the people say, then the general election has been rigged even before the first ballot is cast. To pretend otherwise is the height of hypocrisy and chicanery.

War Against Corruption: Tales From Other Lands

By Ikechukwu Amaechi

Published: May 16, 2009

 

Most Nigerian leaders on assumption of office make the fight against corruption the “epicentre” of their regimes. The incumbent President, Umaru Yar’Adua, is not left out.

When his predecessor Olusegun Obasanjo was first sworn in on May 29, 1999, he also made such a great fuss of his “determination” to fight corruption. Many who had come to see the cankerworm of sleaze as the bane of Nigeria’s socio-economic and political development heaved a sigh of relief. As a battle tested soldier, who loves flaunting his war exploits, it was taken for granted that he would triumph. Ten years after that solemn promise, the jury is still out as to whether he conquered corruption or indeed the reverse was the case. President Yar’Adua, wittingly or unwittingly, is sailing in the same self-deception boat.

Why do Nigerian leaders fail woefully in this self-assigned job? The simple answer is that it takes more than rhetoric to fight graft. They fail because they have no sense of shame. A man with neither sense of shame nor remorse cannot wage a successful war against corruption.

Recent events in two countries will illustrate this point.

On Saturday, former South Korean President, Roh Moo-hyun, hurled himself off a 100-foot high cliff. He died instantly, aged 62. In a country where life expectancy for men is 75, the former President cut his own life short by at least 13 years.

Why?

Because the man who occupied Seoul’s Presidential Blue House for five years was embroiled in a corruption scandal and was horror stricken that his hard-won reputation was about to be thrown to the dogs. His family was alleged to have taken $6 million in bribes from a wealthy businessman, Park Yeon-cha, who was earlier indicted on separate bribery and tax evasion charges.

The former President denied the allegations. Though he admitted his wife and relative received the money in question from the disgraced businessman, he did not see it as bribe. His wife, he said, was given $1 million to help her settle a debt, while the $5 million to a relative was an investment. None of the money came to him directly. It was not proved that he used his family members as fronts in illicit deals.

Nevertheless, he apologized. “I feel ashamed before my fellow citizens. I am sorry for disappointing you,” he told his supporters on April 30.

For a man who came to power in 2003 promising to make a clean break from his country’s graft-ridden political past, he could not bear the emotional burden of having his reputation tainted. For him, death was preferred to a soiled name.

He said that much in his suicide note. “Too many people are suffering because of me … What is left for me for the rest of my life is just to be a burden to others. Don’t be too sad. Aren’t life and death both part of nature? Don’t feel sorry. Don’t blame anybody. It is destiny,” he wrote.

Can anybody imagine a Nigerian President’s wife owing $1 million? Impossible! Not even his mistress would suffer the “indignity” of owing such a paltry sum. Yet, here is the wife of South Korean President, a country with the third largest economy in Asia and 13^th in the world, being in debt with the husband not being able to help. Can anybody imagine a former Nigerian President turning himself in for interrogation over money loaned his wife by a businessman? Impossible!

Lawmakers in the British House of Commons have been in the news in the past couple of weeks over a damning expenses scandal.  And what is it about? In a country where lawmakers must religiously keep in touch with their constituents, most have to live in two places – in their constituencies and in London where they attend Parliament. They are, therefore, allowed to claim expenses to cover the cost of running a second home in London. Details of these claims were leaked to the media and Britons are mad that their representatives in Parliament have not only been making outrageous claims but also avoiding tax on home sales. This has led to the charge of extravagance and heads are rolling politically.

Many of the Parliamentarians are aborting their political careers. The House of Commons Speaker, Michael Martin, whose crime is the perception by some that he was the driving force behind efforts to stop details of the scandal coming out, has resigned.

Justice Minister, Shahid Malik, has stepped down pending an inquiry into whether his failure to declare a preferential rent deal on his constituency home broke the ministerial code. Former Agriculture Minister, Elliot Morley, and backbencher, David Chaytor, have been suspended by their party – Labour Party. Both of them reportedly claimed for mortgage interest months after the mortgages had been paid off.  Mr. Morley also lost his job as Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s climate change envoy.

Andrew MacKay, a Parliamentary aide to Conservative leader, David Cameron, has also quit his post after the party ruled his second home claims were “unacceptable”. He has also decided not to seek re-election. “I understand why people are angry. I hope my decision to step down goes some way to showing my constituents how sorry I am about my own situation,” he said while announcing his decision.

He is not alone. The former Conservative Minister, Douglas Hogg, has said he will not seek re-election; Sir Peter Viggers is also to retire “at the direct request of David Cameron;” another lawmaker, Anthony Steen, said to have claimed more than £87,000 over four years for his country home, is also standing down at the next election. Most of them have paid back the money.

British media report that “there is genuine concern among members of Parliament that the legislature has never been held in lower regard by members of the public. Even MPs who have done nothing wrong are reported to be considering quitting as they are considered “crooks” by the public. Some fear Parliament may take years to recover from the furore.”

Gordon Brown has warned that any “Labour MP who ‘defied’ the rules will not be able to stand again.” Cameron has set up his own scrutiny panel and warned that any Tory lawmaker refusing to return money excessively claimed could be sacked. The Liberal Democrats say no lawmaker should be able to make a profit on the sale of a home which was subsidised by the taxpayer.

Cast your mind back home. Two weeks ago, President Umaru Yar’Adua’s Adviser on Petroleum, Emmanuel Egbogah, alleged that Federal Lawmakers were colluding with oil companies to work against the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB) pending in the National Assembly. The multinational oil companies they were supposed to checkmate ferried them to Ghana for a retreat which sole aim was to devise means of shooting down the Bill. Senate President, David mark, said it was a blackmail from the Presidency, even when the members of the Senate Committees on Gas, Environment, Petroleum Resources and Finance have owned up to the trip.

There is no outrage. Nobody feels it is morally reprehensible to collude with foreigners to work against the interest of fellow citizens in exchange for filthy lucre. None of the legislators has returned the estacode. None of the political parties has sanctioned its members that went on the trip.

The leadership of the House of Representatives survived the car purchase scandal even when there was glaring evidence that Nigerians were shortchanged in the deal.

 

The N6 billion rural electricity scam currently rocking the National Assembly will soon be forgotten. The accused lawmakers will return to their seats as soon as they are granted bail as if nothing happened. There is no sense of shame and the people have the capacity for outrage.

Little wonder corruption easily wins the war against Nigeria and its leaders.